Shé:kon.
My name is Rod McCormick. I'm a Mohawk and a professor and research chair in indigenous health at Thompson Rivers University. I would like to thank the committee for the invitation to provide input on this impending legislation that has literally life-or-death implications.
For context, I'm talking to you from my house on my partner's reserve of Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc in Kamloops, B.C., where I'm the director of an indigenous research centre called All My Relations. Academically, I've been recognized as a distinguished university scholar and a fellow at the Royal Society of Canada. I'm also a mental health clinician who has had almost 40 years of experience as a mental health service provider and consultant for indigenous peoples. One of the consulting projects I'm working on that has pertinence to MAID is the development of a provincial indigenous suicide prevention and life promotion strategy for B.C. on behalf of the First Nations Health Authority.
The expansion of MAID for mental illness goes against every effort I have made in my work in suicide prevention and life promotion. In my work with clients suffering from mental illness and mental anguish, I have worked with numerous clients who are suicidal. Upon recovery, many of them shared with me what they learned from this challenge in life. They realized that suicide was a permanent solution to what proved to be a temporary problem. They realized that they were not thinking clearly at the time they were suicidal. They realized that they had isolated themselves from friends, family and those who could help them. They realized that they were looking for an easy way out. They admitted that they were not aware of the many treatment options that worked for others. They realized in retrospect how their suicide would have devastated their friends and families.
From a study I conducted with 25 indigenous people who recovered from being suicidal, it turns out that responsibility to others is a great protective factor. Although I obviously cannot speak for all indigenous people, the pattern I'm seeing in the expansion of MAID is an abdication of responsibility by the Government of Canada. Instead of making every effort to provide the range of mental health services needed by indigenous people to overcome their pain, Canada is instead imposing upon them the burden of deciding whether or not they should choose a government-sanctioned and medically sanctioned permanent solution to what could easily be a temporary problem.
Many Canadians may not realize that indigenous peoples are a vulnerable population. Due to our history of colonization and ongoing oppression, we have very high rates of unresolved trauma and unresolved grief. We watch our relatives experience death in the custody and care of social services and the justice system. We watch our people die of complex diseases and higher rates of disease than the general population. Our suicide rates are, on average, three times higher than the general population's. Many indigenous communities are affected by minimal economic and employment opportunities, remoteness, accessibility barriers, transportation issues and limited access to necessary disability, health and social services and their associated professionals. When indigenous people are one of the most vulnerable sectors of Canadian society, it seems immoral to provide an easy path to death versus the mental health assistance that other Canadians receive.
MAID is culturally biased, in my opinion, in that it emphasizes the individual's right to autonomy and choice without taking others into consideration. Other cultures do not place such a high value on individualism and autonomy. By encouraging indigenous people to put individual rights ahead of collective responsibilities, Canada is, in a sense, perpetuating colonization.
What do I mean by an abdication of responsibility? If we don't provide the care that people need, then we shouldn't be offering them death as an alternative to that care. There is a failure to understand that appropriate and timely help is the key to survival. Instead of making every effort to provide the range of mental health services needed by Canadians to overcome their pain, Canada is imposing upon them the burden of deciding as an individual to choose death instead.
Figuring out how to address mental illness for the vulnerable is difficult and costly, but resorting to the easy solution of lethal injections is, in my opinion, irresponsible and immoral. Responsibility is the ability to respond—literally to be “response-able”. It seems that the governments, provinces and communities do not feel like they're able to respond to the mental health needs of Canadians if they are now defaulting to doctor-assisted suicide.
How can we, as Canadian citizens, empower our communities and governments so that they feel able to respond? Until we figure that out, I urge the Canadian government to continue to prohibit the use of MAID for mental illness and to instead take the responsible path by improving the mental health services available to indigenous people and to all Canadians.